Thursday 16 December 2010

Day 88 Turkey 15/12/2010, Yenişakran–Menemen–Izmir–Gaziemir. 48.42miles/78.71kms, 4hr03minutes, Av 12mph.

Well it may not have rained last night, but a layer of damp seems to have permeated through everything we own. It was a very wet tent that we packed up this morning.

With the sun starting to shine we rejoined the road and headed toward Izmir. The first pleasant surprise was that in our search for a free camp the previous day, we had travelled closer to Izmir than we had thought. The second was that we were aided by a light tail wind, finally!

On our map the route we would be taking was marked as a major 'A' road and it soon became noticeably wider, smoother and busier. Fortunately, for the first part at least, we had a very wide hard shoulder to ride along. Our first 10 miles passed in no time, so we had a short break at a garage, before setting off again.

As we neared Menemen the weather clouded over and the wind changed direction so that it was once again a headwind. Although tougher going, we continued to make good progress and rolled into the town with thoughts of a warming çay and a simit (sesame seeded bread ring). While the other side of the busy road seemed to be blessed with all manner of food stores, our side seemed to be the tyre repair capitol of Turkey. Perhaps drivers coming in the other direction in need of a tyre repaired are thinking exactly the same thing! Our enforced delay in finding somewhere to stop paid off when we eventually found a bakery. The guy in the bakers was really sweet and served us with çay, simits and gave us several sesame biscuits that were warm from the oven. The biscuits may have been a ploy to get us to drink more tea as they did rather dry your mouth out. We would prefer to think that he was just being friendly though!

With only about 30kms to go to Izmir we set off once again powered on by our light lunch. What we hadn't expected was that Izmir would start almost immediately. Turkey's third largest city with a population of 2.7million is enormous.

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For the next 40kms we would ride through some of the most hideous traffic and roads we could imagine. Looking back on it now, how we came out unscathed is quite miraculous. Imagine riding a bicycle round the M25 at rush hour, then having to cross lanes of traffic every time a turning came up, because we needed to go straight on. When you have passed the turning you have to then watch out for fast moving traffic coming up your inside, as they try and join the road. Moving over early isn't an option either, as a police motorbike signalled us back over to the right when we wanted to go straight on and we consequently got stuck on the wrong side of the road. Fortunately most of the drivers were fairly considerate and did let us across, but we have no intention of ever trying it again. Looking at the map we shouldn't encounter any more roads like it again, in Turkey at least!

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A little shell shocked, we carried on as far through the city as we could, eventually pulling off the road onto a garage forecourt. A helpful petrol pump attendant came over to see if we were all right and commiserated with us about the state of the traffic. He agreed that it was no good for bicycles, but helpfully told us that there is a hotel about 4kms up the road.

With the hope of somewhere to stay we headed back into the traffic and true to the information we found a hotel, but it was very expensive. The guy at the hotel suggested a guest-house across the road and without too much trouble we managed to navigate our way to it.

We couldn't have the room until 5pm, for reasons unknown (cleaning possibly, I really must learn some Turkish!) so we went for an early dinner. A huge meal did us good and hopefully a decent nights' sleep in the warm and dry will help wash away some of the trials of the day. My blushes were spared once again today as I could very easily have lost my winter Buff in the restaurant, if the nice waiter hadn't run after us with it! I really must stop (almost) losing things.

It looks like we may have passed the worst of the traffic and should make it to the relative quiet of Selçuk (Ephesus) tomorrow, where we plan to spend a couple of nights. Wish us luck!

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